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- cabinets (kodana), incense boxes (kobako) and incense holders (kogo). The Japanese wore kimono, the Chinese style robes of the Tang and Song dynasties, but used a different means to fasten their garments. In the Japanese case, they wore obi (sashes) with attachments of inro (seal basket), ojimc and nctsuke (toggle), which were often exquisitely decorated with lacquer, ivory, inlay of mother of pearl, bamboo, etc.
Tea Ceremony
The Japanese �literati� like their Chinese counterparts loved tea drinking. Medieval Zen monks brought three art forms from China to Japan, which became so typically Japanese that they are now considered characteristic of Japanese culture. The first art form was landscape gardening, which provided an ideal atmosphere to relax in. The second was flower arranging, which furnished their home�s with simple contemplative decorations. The third and most important art form was tea-drinking gatherings, which provided for spiritual and intellectual recreation. The Japanese transformed Chinese tea drinking into a ceremony. It was the Song dynasty mode of drinking tea, an infusion of ground tea whisked into a froth with a bamboo whisk, which the Japanese turned into the tea ceremony. The standards of taste, which were cultivated as a result of the tea ceremony, exerted a tremendous influence on the lifestyle not only of the literati, Zen monks and samurai, but also of the ordinary people.
The tea ceremony was a highly organized aesthetic ritual performed according to strict rules, including specifications for the utensils to be used. The host would invite a few guests to join him for the purpose of drinking tea. Each guest would quietly glance at the painting or calligraphy scroll (kakemono) and the flower arrangement (ikebana) in an alcove (tokonoma) at one side of the small tea-room before taking his place opposite the sunken hearth. The whole ceremony was held in a spirit of complete tranquillity, expressing the love of beauty, the devotion to simplicity, and the search for spiritual calm, which characterizes the best in Zen. The main idea of the ceremony was to savour the whole and get a sense of eternity in a few fleeting moments of tea. Here in the tea-room, the host and guest found it fashionable to compose poetry, paint a picture, play the lute or attempt to guess the names of exotic teas he tasted in contests of skill. After drinking the tea, the guest would examine and appreciate the unique qualities and merits of the tea utensils. Often particularly pleasing utensils were even given their own names. As mentioned earlier, many of the tea bowls and vessels originally used and treasured were from China and Korea. Celadons of varying quality were used as well as Temmoku bowls, which was considered the perfect tea bowl due to its nicely-shaped dribble-less lips. Some of these fetched fantastic prices when they arrived in Japan. The latter ware came to be imitated at the Seto kilns near present day Nagoya. Unlike the Chinese, who liked symmetry and perfection in their ceramics, the Japanese admire and prefer age, wear, asymmetry, irregularity, unpredictability, and rustic beauty in their ceramic art.
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